Kidnapped man held naked and force-fed dog food in grisly killing, Kentucky cops say

Jeremy Lind endured a beating so severe that his body was unrecognizable when it was found in an alley in September, police in Kentucky say.

His tongue had been removed, placed in tin foil and shoved back in his mouth, causing him to choke and die, according to Louisville police.

Four months later, a 31-year-old woman has been arrested in the harrowing case in which police say another person was also kidnapped and tortured.

Samantha Johnson, 31, was charged Thursday with murder and several other charges, including complicity to assault and kidnapping, court records show.

A second defendant is also named in court records, but it’s unclear if he was arrested.

Police say Lind and a woman were both awoken around 1 a.m. Sept. 27 and were taken to an undisclosed location where they were tortured.

“They were forced to strip from their clothing, beaten and deprived of their basic human rights,” court documents say. “The victims were forced to eat dog food while naked.”

Lind endured a beating “so extreme that it rearranged his mouth structure,” records say. His hands and feet were tied with rope behind his back, and a cord was placed around his neck.

When Lind became unconscious, police said, the woman was forced to clean up his blood.

At some point, police say, Lind choked on his own tongue that had been removed from his mouth and shoved back inside in a ball of tin foil. He died from asphyxiation, according to the Jefferson County coroner, WHAS reported in October.

The woman, who police say was initially kept for human trafficking, managed to escape..

Lind’s body was taken to a shed and remained there for two to three days before it was dumped in an alley, police say.

Jessica Wilkins, the mother to Lind’s three children, said all she “could do was just cry” when she learned about about happened, WDRB reported.

“We’re really hurt. We just want to know what happened to him,” Wilkins said in October. “He was funny, and he always made you laugh.”

Johnson was placed in the Louisville Metro Department of Corrections on $1 million bail.

This story was originally published January 28, 2021 at 11:28 AM with the headline "Kidnapped man held naked and force-fed dog food in grisly killing, Kentucky cops say."